I Am a Cat (81 page)

“Mr. Sneaze, sir, these were all prospective brides in whom I am, of course, no longer interested. But if any of these marriage candidates happened to interest Mr. Coldmoon or Mr. Beauchamp, I would gladly, in recognition of their assistance to myself act as their agent in effecting introductions to any of these fanciable ladies. How about this one here?” he asks, thrusting a photograph under Coldmoon’s nose.

“Oh nice,” says Coldmoon, “very nice. I rather fancy that one.”

“And how about this?” He shoves another picture into Coldmoon’s hand.

“Very nice, too. Quite charming. Yes, I certainly fancy her.”

“But which one do you want?”

“I don’t mind which.”

“You seem a bit feckless,” Sampei commented dryly. Then, turning to my master, he went on with his sales pitch. “This one, actually, is the niece of a doctor.”

“I see.”

“This next one is extremely good-natured. Young, too. Only seventeen. . . And this one carries a whacking great dowry. . . While this one here is a daughter of a provincial governor.” All alone with his imaginings, Sampei rattles on.

“Do you think I could marry them all?”

“All? That’s plain gluttonous. Are you some kind of polygamist or something?”

“No, not a polygamist. But a carnivore, of course.”

“Never mind what you are. Sampei, put those snaps away at once.

Can’t you see,” said my master in a tone of sharp scolding, “that he’s only leading you on?”

“So you don’t want an introduction to any of them,” said Sampei, half in question and half in statement, as, one by one, slowly, giving Beauchamp and Coldmoon a last chance to relent, he put the pictures back into his pocket.

There was no response.

“Well now, what are those bottles for?”

“A present. I bought them just now at the dramshop on the corner so that we might drink to my forthcoming marriage. Come, let’s start.”

My master clapped his hands for the maid and asked her to open the bottles. Then the five of them, my master, Waverhouse, Singleman, Coldmoon, and Beauchamp, solemnly lifting their glasses, congratulated Sampei on his good fortune in love. Sampei fairly glowed with self-esteem and assured them, “I shall invite you all to the ceremony. Can all of you come? I do hope so.”

“No,” my master answered promptly. “I shan’t.”

“Why ever not? It’ll be the grandest once-in-a-lifetime day of my life.

And you won’t attend it? Seems a bit heartless.”

“I’m not heartless. But I won’t attend.”

“Ah, you haven’t got the things to wear? Is that the snag?

I can gladly arrange for the right kit to be made available. You really ought to go out more and meet people. I’ll introduce you to some well-known persons.”

“That’s the very last thing I would wish.”

“It might even cure your stomach troubles.”

“I don’t care if they never get better.”

“Well, if you can’t be budged, you can’t. But how about you others?

Will you be able to come?”

“Me? I’d love to,” said Waverhouse. “I would even be delighted to play the role of the honored go-between. A verse leaps to my lips:

Evening in spring:

The marriage rite

And nuptial bonds made champagne-tight.

“What’s that you said? Suzuki’s going to be the go-between? I might have known it. Well, in that case, I’m sorry, but there it is. I suppose that it really would be a bit too much to have two lots of go-betweens. So I’ll attend your party as an ordinary human being.”

“And how about you? Will you come with your friends?”

“Me?” said Singleman apparently surprised.

“Having this fishing rod to be my friend,

I live at ease in nature and am free

Of every care the red-dust world might send

Like some hooked promise to entangle me.”

“And what the hell is that?” asked Waverhouse. “Something from the hallowed guide on how to write a poem in Chinese?”

“I really can’t remember where I picked it up.”

“You really can’t remember? How tiresome for you. Well, come if your fishing rod can spare you. And you, Mr. Coldmoon, I hope I may count on you. After all, you have a special status in this matter.”

“Most certainly I’ll be there. It would be a pity to miss the chance of hearing my own music played by an orchestra.”

“Of course. And what about you, Mr. Beauchamp?”

“Well, yes. I’d like to be there to read my new-style poem in front of the couple themselves.”

“That’s wonderful. Mr. Sneaze, sir, I’ve never before in all my life felt so pleased with the world. And, to mark the moment, I’ll have another glass of that beer.” He filled a tumbler to the brim and sank it at one go.

Slowly his face turned shining red.

The short autumn day has grown dark. The charcoal fire in the brazier has long ago burnt out and its crust of ash is studded and strewn with an ugly mess of cigarette ends. Even these happy-go-lucky men seem to have had enough of their merriment and in the end it was Singleman who, climbing stiffly to his feet, remarked, “It’s getting late.

Time to be on our way.” The others followed suit and, politely apopemptic, vanished into the night. The drawing room grew desolate, like a variety hall when the show is over.

My master ate his dinner and went off into his study. His wife, feeling the autumn chill, tightens her collar, settles over her sewing box, and gets on with her remodeling of a worn-out kimono. The children, lying in one row, are fast asleep. The maid has gone out to a bathhouse.

If one tapped the deep bottom of the hearts of these seemingly lighthearted people, it would give a somewhat sad sound. Though Singleman behaves as though enlightenment had made him a familiar of the skies, his feet still shuffle, earthbound, through this world. The world of Waverhouse, though it may be easy-going, is not the dreamworld of those painted landscapes which he loves. That winsome donzel Coldmoon, having at last stopped polishing his little globes of glass, has fetched from his far home province a bride to cheer his days. Which is pleasant and quite normal, but the sad fact is that long-continued, pleasant normality becomes a bore. Beauchamp too, however golden-hearted he is now, will have come in ten years’ time to realize the folly of giving away for nothing those new-style poems that are the essence of his heart. As for Sampei, I find it difficult to judge whether he’ll finish up on top of the pile or down the drain, but I’d like to think he’ll manage to live his life out proud and happy in the ability to souse his acquaintance in champagne. Suzuki will remain the same eternal groveling creeper. Grovelers get covered in mud, but, even so be-sharned, he’ll manage better than those who cannot creep at all.

As for me, I am a cat, still nameless though born two years ago, who has lived his life among men. I have always thought myself unique in my knowledge of mankind, but I was recently much surprised to meet another cat, some German mog called Kater Murr, who suddenly turned up and started sounding off in a very high-falutin’ manner on my own special subject. I subsequently made enquiries and discovered that my visitor was in fact the ghost of a cat who, though he’d been in Hell since dying a century ago, had become so piqued with curiosity about my reputation that he rematerialized for the express purpose of upsetting me. This cat, I learned, was a most unfilial creature. On one occasion when he was going to meet his mother, he was carrying a fish in his mouth to give her as a present. However he failed to control his animal appetites and broke his journey to guzzle the fish. His combination of talents and greed was such as to make him virtually human, and he even once astonished his master by writing a poem. If such a feline culture-hero was already demonstrating superior cat skills so long as a century ago, perhaps a good-for-nothing specimen like me has already outlived its purpose and should no more delay its retirement into nothingness.

My master, sooner or later, will die of his dyspepsia. Old man Goldfield is already doomed by his greed. The autumn leaves have mostly fallen. All that has life must lose it. Since there seems so little point in living, perhaps those who die young are the only creatures wise. If one heeds the sages who assembled here today, mankind has already sentenced itself to extinction by suicide. If we don’t watch out, even cats may find their individualities developing along the lethal crushing pattern forecast for these two-legged loons. It’s an appalling prospect.

Depression weighs upon me. Perhaps a sip of Sampei’s beer would cheer me up.

I go around to the kitchen. The backdoor is half-open and rattles in the autumn wind. Which seems to have blown the lamp out, for the room’s unlit. Still, there are shadows tilting inward through the window.

Moonrise, I suppose. On a tray there are three glasses, two of them half-filled with a brownish liquid. Even warm water, if kept in a glass, looks cold. Naturally this liquid, standing quietly beside the jar of charcoal existinguisher, looks, in the icy moonlight, chill and uninviting.

However, anything for experience. If Sampei, as I recall, could after drinking it become a bright, warm red and start breathing as heavily as a man who’s run a mile, perhaps it’s not impossible for a cat that drinks it to feel livelier. Anyway, some day I, too, must die so l might as well try everything before I do. Once I’m dead, I tell myself, it will be too late in the grave to regret that I never tasted beer. So, take courage and drink up!

I flicked my tongue into the stuff but, as I began to lap, I got a sharp surprise. The tip of my tongue, as though it had been pricked with needles, stung and tingled painfully. What possible pleasure can human beings find in drinking such unpleasant stuff? I’ve heard my master describe revolting food as not fit for a dog, but this dark drink is truly not fit for a cat. There must be some fundamental antipathy between cats and beer. Conscious of danger, I quickly withdrew my tongue. But then, on reflection, I remembered that men have a pet saying about good medicines always tasting filthy and that the drafts they down to cure their colds invariably make them grimace with disgust. I’ve never worked out whether they get cured by drinking muck or whether they’d get well anyway without the face-making business. Now’s my chance to find out. If drinking beer poisons my entire intestines, well, that will be just too bad: but if like Sampei, I grow so cheerful as to forget everything around me, then I’ll accept the experience as an unexpected joy and even, perhaps, I’ll teach all the cats of the neighborhood how sweet it is to drown one’s woes in drink. Anyway, let’s take a chance and see.

The decision made, I drooped my tongue out cautiously. But if I can actually see the bitter liquid I find it hard to drink it; so closing my eyes tight shut, I began to lap.

When, by sheer strength of will and tigerlike perseverance, I’d lapped away the beer-lees in the first glass, a strange phenomenon occurred. The initial agony of my needled tongue began to ease off and the ghastly feeling in my mouth, a feeling as if some hand were squeezing my cheeks together from the outside, was pleasurably relieved. By the time I’d dealt with the first glass, beer swilling was no longer much of a problem. I finished off the second glass so painlessly that, while I was about it, I even lapped up all the spill on the tray and slurped the whole lot down into my stomach.

That done, in order to study my body’s reactions, I crouched down quietly for a while. My body is gradually growing warm. I feel hot around my eyes and my ears are burning. I feel like singing a song. I feel like dancing the Cat’s High Links. I feel like telling my master, Waverhouse, and Singleman that they can all go to hell. I feel like scratching old man Goldfield. I feel like biting his wife’s vast nose off. I feel like doing lots of things. And in the end I felt I’d like to wobble to my feet. As I stood up, I felt I’d like to walk. Highly pleased with myself I felt like going out. And as I staggered out, I felt like shouting, “Moon, old man, how goes it?” So I did. Oh, but I felt wonderful!

So this, I thought, is how it feels to be gloriously drunk. Radiant with glory, I persevered in setting my unsteady feet one in front of each other in the correct order. Which is very difficult when you have four feet. I made no effort to travel in any particular direction but just kept going in long, slow wayward totter. I’m beginning to feel extremely sleepy, and indeed I hardly know if I’m still walking or already sunk in sleep. I try to open my eyes, but their lids have grown unliftably heavy. Ah, well, it can’t be helped. Confidently telling myself that nothing in this world, neither seas nor mountains nor anything else, could now impede my cat-imperial progress, I put a front paw forward when suddenly I hear a loud, sloppy splash. . . As I come to my senses, I know that I’m done for.

I had no time to work out how I’d been done for because, in the very moment that I realized the fact of it, everything went haywire.

When I again came to myself I found I was floating in water. Because I was also in pain I clawed at what seemed its cause, but scratching water had no effect except to result in my immediate submersion. I struck out desperately for the surface by kicking with my hind-legs and scrabbling with my fore-paws. This action eventually produced a sort of scraping sound and, as I managed to thrust my head just clear of the water, I saw that I’d fallen into a big clay jar against whose side my claws had scraped.